Hi everyone- A few days ago my daughter says she saw a very white bird near Six Mile Creek, upstream from second dam. I don't know exactly where, but probably downhill from Commanland. She thought at first it was a gull due to its brightness, but quickly realized that it wasn't a gull due to its size, and especially when she saw it had an owl-like face. When I showed her some pictures of birds, the snowy owl seemed to match up best in her opinion. She's not a birder, and she didn't have binoculars with her, but she is very good at noticing details.
My Audubon birding guide app has ebird data built into it, so I looked up to see if there had been any recent reports in the eastern Finger Lakes, and I didn't see anything. However, yesterday I saw the snowy owl map (link below), in my twitter feed, and snowy owls have, indeed, been on the move, and people have been spotting them farther south than ithaca. Here's a link to the Roger Tory Petersen Institute blog posting, in case the twitter link doesn't work: http://rtpi.org/snowy-owl-invasion-coming/ So, is it possible she saw a snowy owl? She also thought she saw one a couple of weeks ago flying above her apt on South Hill in Ithaca. Thanks, Liisa Liisa Mobley Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: It was just past second dam last time [https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/378800000330054681/428ef33fb3aca72c481f07a8645bdb47_normal.png] Wilson Ornith Soc (@WilsonOrnithSoc<https://twitter.com/wilsonornithsoc>) 11/23/13, 11:18 AM<https://twitter.com/wilsonornithsoc/status/404282754101039104> MT @RTPInstitute<https://twitter.com/RTPInstitute> @Team_eBird<https://twitter.com/Team_eBird> Snowy Owl map for November 2013: irruption underway? pic.twitter.com/Wn8dtvaCsa<http://t.co/Wn8dtvaCsa> Download the official Twitter app here<https://twitter.com/download?ref_src=MailTweet-iOS> Liisa Mobley Sent from my iPhone -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
